Agriculture expert and former Secretary of State for Water Resources Abdallah Rabhi stressed the need for Tunisia to adopt what is called “aggressive diplomacy” to claim its right to financial support from countries industrialized and oil producers, given the responsibility they bear for global warming.
Rabhi said that climate change has become a reality in Tunisia, noting that the northwest has never experienced water shortage for almost 4 or 5 consecutive years, and that the Beja region has not either. most famously a 40 percent decrease in water flow.
He added that this year the level of precipitation has improved, but it remains low in all regions of the Republic, since we recorded only 70 percent of precipitation on average, and in the central-west only 50 percent, for the fifth year in a row, indicating that this situation is linked to global warming.
He clarified that it is not Tunisia which is responsible for this difficult climatic situation, but rather the industrialized and oil-producing countries, in addition to the geographical location of Tunisia (North Africa and the Middle East), which is the most difficult region in terms of water resources.
Faced with this situation, Rabhi stressed the need for Tunisia to adopt “aggressive diplomacy” and deploy major diplomatic efforts at the state level, in order to obtain its share of financial support to deal with the effects of the climate change.
Rabhi recalled that the water strategy of the Ministry of Agriculture, Horizon 2050, requires significant financial resources, indicating that by 2050, Tunisia will have 600 million cubic meters of treated water, of which Most of it is concentrated in Greater Tunis and Sfax, and the cost of transporting it to internal destinations will be high.
He stressed the need for Tunisia to improve the preparation of its file, given that the cost of 75 thousand billion that it will devote to the water strategy is very difficult to unlock, also taking into account a situation difficult economy.
Rabhi also highlighted the importance of governance, as there must be harmony and joint action between all state structures involved in the water issue.
This article is originally published on tunisienumerique.com
